


Body

by kurenix



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Partial Mind Control, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurenix/pseuds/kurenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alphonse's body waits at the Gate. He's alone, mostly, but there's one person he still remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Body

**Author's Note:**

> For aryaelfkin@LJ, as part of a fic exchange.

The gate is a heavy grey. Its doors sit heavily on an invisible doorframe, cold and grey and very solid. Some kind of stone, perhaps, or a dull metal. The gate stands on nothing but yet does not float; the gate is as heavy as an exhaled breath. There are pictures engraved in its surface, dark pictures, carved with edges so crisp and sharp they snag on the eye.

The gate is heavy grey in a white, white space, a space that glows with no shadow, a space that expands endless in all directions.

 

 

 

 

You watch the gate. There is not much else to watch in this place, so it’s become habit for your eyes to wander to it.

You wonder, briefly, what the pictures on those doors could mean. You reach out to touch them sometimes, running your hands over the carvings. You trace around one loop, then the next, then the thick gnarled lines that spread and end at the edges of the door. The etchings under your fingers cut into the skin but never break it, and you never break them either, no matter how delicate they seem. They feel old, old and timeless, so old they never had a beginning.

You wonder, just as briefly, what could be behind that gate, then the impulse is gone and all is white again.

 

 

 

 

“Hey! Alphonse, right?”

Sometimes there is someone else there with you. If you could call him a someone, that is. He seems born out of the white itself, nothing differentiating him from the space around him but an amorphous black shadow. He is white moulded into a humanoid form, except with no hair, no nose, and no eyes. The only feature breaking the smooth surface of his face is a wide, white grin.

“You’re Alphonse, aren’t you? Alphonse Elric?”

He speaks with a voice that sounds like yours. It has strange qualities to it, though; it echoes in all the wrong ways, like his throat is making two sounds at the same time, one rougher and deeper than the other. The strangeness sends a faint chill up your spine, and you tremble.

“Hm? Is that a yes? Sorry, I just want to know if you recognise your name, you see.”

He grins his white grin, with its rows of large white teeth. You watch as he sits down in front of you, crossing his legs and planting a hand on one knee, elbow at a right angle.

“Come on now, tell me! Are you Alphonse Elric or not?”

You pause.

“…Yes.”

Your voice is scratchy and weak as it comes out of you; you haven’t been talking much lately. But it carries well enough in this place with no walls, and the figure in front of you smiles even wider.

 

“That’s right! Good job. Very interesting,” he says, and seems to expect a response. When you do not give one, he just laughs. “I hope you won’t mind me. I just can’t help being so curious about you!”

His smile hardens. “It’s not often someone leaves their whole body here.”

“…Body?”

“Indeed. Disembodied soul, soul bonded to an inanimate object in the material world, that sort of thing. Get it, Alphonse?”

You don’t say anything.

“Tell me, Al, do you know why you are here?”

You pause. You do not.

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

You do not.

“Heh, makes me wonder how much you actually _can_ know,” the figure says, putting a finger to his chin. “Well then! Let me try something.”

He stands up, and before you he changes. It is in a way almost imperceptible, but you can just about make it out against the bright white light. Suddenly some of his limbs are different; suddenly one of his arms and one of his legs look more solid than before.

“Do you remember _this_?”

The figure steps forward, holding his right arm out across his face. It seems enveloped in something, something that against his white body just looks cast in shadow at first. But when you lean a little closer you realise it is not just shadow, but skin, slightly tanned and slightly scarred skin –

                                              – skin just a little bit darker than your own, dotted with tiny scars and a long one jagged along the back of the wrist, skin that is hardy and rough and damaged but still unquestionably the skin of a young boy.

You know that skin. You know that skin could belong to no other person.

 

 

 

 

When the figure leaves, you remember what he said, and what he showed you, and you try to remember your brother.

The figure told you that your soul was elsewhere. At some point, some time _before_ , you both had entered this place, and in doing so had to pay a toll. Your toll had been your body, and Edward’s his leg, but he later returned to exchange his arm for your soul.

_And so you are here_ , he said with a smile, _an empty shell_. Then he tilted his head and asked _you really don’t remember anything?_   You told him you did not. He just laughed, said _try a little harder!_ , and blinked out of existence.

You try. You attempt to recall what happened before, but before is hard to think of in a place with no time. Regardless, you perform the act of remembering to the best of your ability. You shut your eyes, tense your muscles, and achieve perfect mimicry of one suffering from acute constipation, but it is ultimately of no use.

It gradually occurs to you that you do not know where your memories are. Though you have no doubt of your own reality – your heart beats somewhere inside you in a way that is intensely real – something is off. Your head feels dark, like it’s been filled with a thick fog which leaves nothing but blurred, faint lights.

You are Alphonse Elric. This you know for sure – the syllables roll smoothly off your tongue. You are Alphonse, and you were not born alone. You have a brother, and his name is Edward – the name rolls right off your tongue too. These two things you know for sure.

Yet before the figure wore your brother’s arm and showed you his skin, you did not realise anything amiss. All you were aware of was this eternal white space, and this big heavy gate. Now you do know what is missing, and you are not sure how to feel about this. You are not sure how to feel about anything, really.

Maybe that’s what he meant, by being a body.

 

 

 

 

 “Tell me what the pictures mean.”

The white figure turns to stare at you – at least, that’s what you assume he’s doing, as best as you can tell without him having any eyes.

“Pictures? You mean the pictures on the gate?”

“Tell me what they mean.”

“Curiosity!” he exclaims, flashing his ever-present grin. “I didn’t expect that from you.”

“Tell me.”

“Very well, then. It’ll be interesting to see how much you can actually understand!”

He leans forward into your face. “Are you familiar with the word ‘alchemy’?”

Alchemy. You test the word in your mouth. It fits, in a familiar way. “Yes.”

“But you don’t know what it means, I take it?”

“…No.”

“All right, then. Let me put it simply for you.”

The figure straightens up and then he is at the gate, one arm outstretched, gazing upwards. “Alchemy is humanity’s attempt to become god.”

You don’t think you understand what he says; you try to think, but it feels once again like grasping in the dark, like it does when you try to remember. But something clawing faintly at the back of your neck tells you this is important, so you persist.

“God?”

“In the beginning, or so they say, there was a god who created the world. That means that it was this god who decided what should be what! Like what should become air and what should become ground, what should become a tree, and what should become a human. But as man grew older, he became unhappy. _‘What if I want more water in the world?’_ he thought. _‘What if I want more gold?’_ And so he came to learn alchemy.”

You blink.

“Humanity does have its limitations, of course,” the figure continues. “Humans cannot create out of nothing. If a human wants a thing, he has to get it from something else. He has to make a sacrifice, though of course he gets something back from it! Equivalent exchange, you know?”

He gestures to the pictures. “This, my dear Al, is a small part of how alchemy works.”

You look at the gate. Despite the figure’s extensive exposition, the pictures have not gained any additional meaning; they look as strange to you as ever. Your eyes follow the deeply carved lines up the gate’s doors, lines that loop over each other over and over again. They look a little bit like a ladder, a ladder that goes up and up and ever upwards –

                           – not a ladder, a plant, a plant that touches the sun and does not burn.

“Your brother tried to play god.”

The figure smiles from behind you; you’ve almost forgotten he was there.

“It didn’t really turn out well for him.”

You wonder where the figure goes when he leaves. Whether there is actually anywhere else to go.

 

 

 

 

Something happened, when he explained the pictures to you. Something, though you don’t know what.

It was the same thing, you realise, that happened when the figure held Edward’s arm out to you, and you recognised his skin. You knew him then, without effort, unlike the time you tried and failed to pull those memories out of nowhere.

Perhaps this was the same. When your eyes moved up the gate, your memories snagged on its carvings and came alive somehow, like the dim lights in your head were flaring up, and you remembered. You didn’t remember how the pictures said what they said, or why, but you remembered _what_.

You close your eyes and focus on your brother’s arm, the arm the figure showed you, and the rest comes easy. Although you don’t remember your life with Edward, you still remember who he _was_ , and the way he existed in the world around you. Behind your shut eyelids you see him – you see both his arms now, taut and relentlessly sunburnt at the shoulders – his legs, strong and stocky and rooted to the ground as sturdy as a tree – his hair, like yours, but longer and pulled back with a fringe that flops over his face – and his eyes, also like yours, but with a glint and spark in them you’ve never seen in your own, never seen in anyone else.

You may have lost your mind, but how could you forget Ed, who’s ingrained into every fibre of your being?

 

 

 

 

“Will he come back?”

“Hm? Who?”

“Ed. Will he come back?”

“Come back to this place, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever would he do that for?”

“To get me.”

The figure stares at you, and you stare back. It’s hard to match a gaze that is essentially eyeless, but you try anyway.

“Interesting!” the figure says. He’s said this many times, but this sounds different. It comes out slower. “You may not realise, but it’s real difficult to get to a place like this. Do you see any exits here?”

“He came before.”

“That was through extraordinary circumstances.”

“Will he come back to get me?”

“It’s interesting you think I can answer that question!” he laughs, leaning towards you. It suddenly feels very uncomfortable. He glows like the rest of this place, but he radiates no heat; you do not feel his closeness. “It’s true I’m the only person you can actually talk to here, but do I look like someone who can read your brother’s mind?”

You don’t have an answer to that.

“I enjoy our idle conversation, I really do. But to hear you say something like that… it’s interesting, very interesting, but so cruel! If Edward Elric comes back, he’ll have to give up something else, yet another thing precious to him, to get you. Why would you want him to do that all over again?”

He stands up. “Why would he do that?”

 

 

 

 

You remember Ed more and more as time goes by. Calling forth his physical appearance is now second nature; you graze your inner eye along him effortlessly, as familiar as your own heartbeat. Along with that, now, come memories. They are brief, nothing but flashes in the corners of your eyes most of the time, but memories all the same. For a moment you’ll see his sandal-covered feet running through grass, and the next moment he’ll be wrinkling his nose at a carton of milk. You’ll see him sleeping away in class, then eyes wide under the candlelight, laughing as he blows the dust off a large, red book.

But what you remember the most are his hands, tracing patterns on the wooden floors of the house you shared, writing in flowing and indecipherable script on heavy parchment, brushing against your arm a few times, many times, the only warmth you had in the cold, cold basement.

He is your only company in this white place and you miss him.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you feel hungry. You remember what hungry is, now you’ve remembered so many breakfasts and late night pantry raids with your brother. And you feel it, when you think about it too much, about the shadow you cast and how thin it’s getting. It’s not a nice feeling.

 

 

 

 

Someone else visits you. Again, you’re not sure if you can call this a “someone”; it looks grey and heavy, like the gate, in a different way. In fact, it seems even less humanoid than the figure made out of white. But it reflects the light in a way that suggests it does not belong here, and when you see that you feel a jolt way down inside.

An uncontrollable urge fills you to reach out to it, to reach out to _him_ , though at the same time you’re unable to move a millimetre. You are drawn to him, inexorable as a fly to a light, and you are convinced that he’s also drawn to you. You search his face till you find his eyes, which glow bright in the dark mask of his face, and the lights in your head burn.

You try to call out, your whole being is calling out to this unmoving behemoth, but your voice has no sound. _Come back_ , your body cries, _come back_ , and you don’t know why.

 

 

 

 

 “They’re coming.”

 

“Who?”

“Ed. And…” you hesitate, trying to remember, making sure you believe what you’re about to say. “…my soul.”

“Is that so? How do you know that?”

How could you possibly explain it to him? “I just know.”

“Is that so?” the figure says again. This time it’s like he’s savouring the words, enjoying the sound they make in his mouth as he talks. Then he says “interesting”, with the same amount of deliberation, but you already know he never gets tired of that one.

“Interesting! If that really does happen… well! It’ll be really interesting, won’t it?”

“It will happen. They’re coming.”

“Is that so?”

He leaves.

 

 

 

 

The grey thing which contains your soul comes back a few more times, and each time you try to talk to him. It never works – he never stays for long, and words never come out – but each time you look into his eyes it’s like you’re getting a little closer, and you’re coming to know a little more about what’s been happening outside.

_Maybe if I reach hard enough I’ll get my soul without Ed needing to come back_ , you think, but at the same time you want him to. It’s cruel, it really is, but you want him to. At one point you feel embarrassed, for some reason, that your hair keeps getting into your eyes and you’ve become so much thinner than you used to be. A while later you realise it’s because you don’t want Ed to see you like this, when he does get here.

 

 

 

“Hey! Do you know what the seven sins are?”

You don’t. The figure knows you don’t just as well as you do, but at this point you can’t afford not to humour him. Now that you’re waiting for something, something you know that’s coming, time has started to move forward again. And each second feels like an eternity.

“I mean, considering the situation you’re in right now, I can’t help but wonder whether you’re actually capable of sinning.”

“What do you mean?”

“Humans are tricky. They have a body, and they have a soul, but how they make decisions isn’t tied to either in particular. Sometimes it’s one, and sometimes it’s both. And since decisions lead to sins, the same thing applies! Some sins,” he holds up seven fingers, “are easier to blame on the soul than the others.”

“Like what?”

“Pride, for instance,” he answers, putting down one finger. “It’s quite the sin of the soul, don’t you think? I mean, I don’t think you care very much about whether you’re better than everyone else or not right now.”

He’s right. Your memories, though, tell you of a person that was full of this. Ed was proud. Never afraid to acknowledge his talent, and never afraid to shoot down those that stood in his way. But he was happy, and was never actually bad to anyone. Was pride really a sin?

“Then there’s envy. Wanting something that other people have really, really badly, and hating people just ‘cos they have it. That’s down to the soul, alright. Wrath, too… that’s soul-ish, but not so clear-cut, I think. The rest of the sins get even harder to define. Maybe sloth’s from the body, but everyone gets tired and only a few become sloths, so there you go… how about greed? Do you feel greedy?”

You don’t respond.

“Maybe for you it’s more of gluttony, isn’t it? That’s gotta be a body sin. Are you hungry?”

You are. You always are.

“Yeah, I figured. Gluttony… ooh, that’s a tough one to conquer. Good luck with that. That leaves us with one final sin.”

The figure holds up one last finger, dangling it over your head. “Lust. I’m pretty sure I know where _that_ one comes from.”

Lust. As you watch the figure disappear – looks like he’s had his fun with you – you consider lust. You’ve never really known what lust means exactly. Maybe it means sex, but that doesn’t seem right now that you think about it. It means to want something, for sure, want something very much, but you’re not sure what –

                 – You are caught up in a memory of skin against skin. Your brother’s hands against your own in the candlelit depths of the basement, as he takes you through the designs of a new transmutation circle. _Look at that, see, this has to work!_ he’s saying, guiding your fingers along the circle’s intricacies, pointing out each careful annotation he’s made. He’s smiling and his hands are very warm, and in the cold of your father’s study you don’t want to let go –

                           The memory seizes you whole, and when it’s over it’s hard to breathe. Is this lust, then? Is this the unpardonable sin the figure spoke of?  All you want is warmth in the cold, bright candlelight and laughter, and your brother’s hands on yours. How could anyone not want that?

 

 

 

 

It occurs to you at one point that Ed is a lot older now. Years have passed, you’ve learnt from your encounters with the vessel of your soul, since you became trapped in this place. You wonder what he’s like now – what he’s done with the holes where his arm and leg used to be, how much taller he’s grown. You think about these things and a pang goes right through you, because you haven’t been there to see it happen.

 

 

 

 

You’ve stopped sleeping since you’ve come here, but you haven’t stopped dreaming. When you close your eyes you dream. At first, in the early times, it was nothing. Then you relived memories, as you regained them. Then you began to imagine, as much as you could, before you were blocked by the fog in your head and had to stop.

But lately when you close your eyes, things have come to you completely unbidden. Snow, vicious snow, whipping at your vision. Dirty walls and train tracks, and people you don’t recognise. Red eyes and teeth on a black, roiling background – this one fills you with such chills you want to scream.

 

 

 

 

When you open your eyes after that last one, you see your soul’s vessel again. He seems weaker than usual; he comes to kneel in front of you, trembling. You want to run to him, embrace him, but just like all the times before, you’re rooted to the spot like some kind of stone. _He’s close_ , you think, _he’s so close_ , but then, quite abruptly, you’re gone.

_“I’ve waited so long. Welcome back.”_

You’re not you. You’re speaking, but it’s the white figure who’s talking through you. Slowly your awareness of the situation recedes, like you’ve been pushed to the back of your own head. It doesn’t matter, though. He can have his fun. All that matters right now is that it’s come, the time’s finally come…

_“You don’t want your real body back?”_

Huh?

What’s going on? Your vessel is sinking to the ground, clutching his head in his hands. He’s crying, or at least coming the closest he can as a metal being with no tears. He’s trembling, you’re standing over him, but you’re not reaching out for him or helping him up. Why are you not doing that?

_“Forgive me! I’ll come back!”_

The gate opens behind you. He stands up, and he runs towards it.

_“I swear I’ll come back!”_

You don’t turn around. You continue to stand, your straw-thin legs trembling under you, as something rends you from the inside out.

_“Promise!”_

You would cry if you could, but you can’t. You can’t do anything. Your lips mutter something dark that you can’t make out; all your attention is on the suit of armour, the container of your soul, the part of you that had a life and memories and hands to keep him warm in the night, running away from you.

For a while you are nothing but lost and empty, but as the doors close on him, a vision slams into you –

                                      – of a warzone. Of a building, decimated, rubble everywhere. Of people lying on the ground, people you care about, all broken and twisted and on the brink of something you don’t dare think about –

 

                                                                                          – of Ed, fighting, screaming, dying.

 

 

 

 

“What’s going on?”

“Hm? What are you talking about?”

“Tell me. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Alphonse, Alphonse, what do you take me for? Do you really think I’m some all-powerful fortune teller at your beck and call, capable of doing everything you desire?”

“…No.”

The figure sits before you, cross-legged and grinning. After all this time you still don’t know who or what he is, and the thought makes you dig your fingernails so hard into your palms they hurt.

“But you talked to me. You talked to my soul, and he left. Why did he leave? And why is Ed is in trouble?!”

You’re raising your voice for the first time since you’ve come here, and even he looks a little surprised. “I know… I know you know something. I want to know.”

He laughs.

“That’s right!”

“I’m… I’m right? About what?”

“I’ve been lying to you the whole time! You know, when I said I didn’t know things? I know everything, Al. I am not capable of not knowing anything, for I am everything.”

You look at him, this heatless being with his ever-present grin, and find this surprisingly easy to believe.

“They call me many things. The Universe, the World, God… ugh, I’ve gone over this far too many times already. Most people, I believe, call me Truth.”

“So you can tell me, then.”

Truth leans forward on his elbows, like he’s settling down for a long talk. “Right now, Edward’s fighting someone very, very hard to beat. And when I say hard to beat, I mean _really_ hard to beat. Almost impossible, in fact, because this person has swallowed God.”

“Swallowed God…?”

“Yeah! Long story, really, and not something you need to worry about.”

“Is Ed going to win?”

“You know, I actually did mean it when I told you I couldn’t predict the future.”

“Okay,” you concede.

“But I can make good guesses! And honestly his chances aren’t looking particularly high right now… oops, I think he just lost his arm. That about does it for him.”

His words are cold rain.

“Save him!”

“Oh, I can’t do anything. I’m stuck in this place, same as you! I don’t have any impact on the world. You could even say I’m the one who’s fighting him–”

You lunge at him, toppling him to the ground.

“Please! Do something!”

“Interesting! Such anger! I always thought wrath was a product of the mind, but I guess I was wrong…”

“There has to be something. Anything!”

“Why are you so desperate? What they do out there has nothing to do with you. You’re not even Al at all, isn’t that right? You’re just a body! Why do you care?”

You pause, panting. You’re on top of him now, your hands gripping his incorporeal shoulders, and that really took a lot more out of you than it should have. But when the words come, they come easy.

“I want to see him. That’s all.”

“…Pity.”

“Huh?”

“With what you’re planning to do now, you probably aren’t going to see Edward ever again.”

What?

“Edward’s arm has been destroyed. However, he has another arm, which is right here with me. You, Alphonse, are going to sacrifice your soul to get it back. Isn’t that funny? Thing is, sacrificing himself means he’s gonna be stuck here. And by he, I mean you. Maybe forever!”

You rock backwards, letting go of Truth’s shoulders. Then your backside hits the floor and you sprawl, legs all messy.

“How sad! Edward loses his whole brother this time. Getting his body out of this place was already going to cost a lot, but a whole person? Goodness, I don’t even know if it’ll be possible for him to pay that toll…”

You’re pathetic. You’re scrawny, haggard, hungry, barely a person. Why would he come back for you? Why should he?

“You could stop it, you know. You could not let him back into his body. I’ll let you do that, I think, out of the infinite kindness of my heart! Ed will just have to fight for himself.”

He’d asked you why you cared, before, but it wasn’t even a question. You’ve never had to think about that, and that’s how you answered then. But you’d forgotten to ask yourself one important thing: why Ed would care.

Would he care enough to take you back? This semi-human, with barely any strength to fight or even stand on its own?

…No. You’re being stupid.

He’ll come for you because he has to. Because he’s your brother, and because just as you’ve got all these memories of him and being with him, he’s got them too, and how could anyone not want that?

It’s never been about caring, really. It’s about hurtling towards something inevitable.

It’s about living with something you could never live without.

“He’ll come.”

“What?”

“He will,” you say, and even though you’re still lying on the ground, your voice is strong. “I know it.”

Truth stands over you, considering your words. Then he grins, and somehow it’s the widest it’s ever been.

“Heh. Should have guessed. That’s another thing about bodies – they just can’t be reasoned with.”

Truth offers you a hand, and you take it.

“Come on, then. We’ll greet your soul together.”

 

 

 

 

 

A while later, you get to grasp your hand. It’s cold, rough, and scrapes against your palm, but you’re okay with that. You know you’ll feel warmth again soon. You’ve just got to wait a little longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

“Sup? You’ve got your contents inside you now, I see.”

What a strange place this is. You remember it a little, you have since that time you got all your memories back, but it doesn’t mean you’re used to it. Everything’s all white, and the air seems to have no temperature at all. And here’s this guy, wearing your brother’s limbs, though you can see the arm rapidly returning to its rightful owner.

“You really think he’ll come back for you?”

You don’t hesitate for a second. “He will. I know it.”

“What do you think he’ll sacrifice?” the figure muses, chuckling to himself. You, no longer interested in engaging him, gaze upon your Gate. You know this Gate well, with the Marrow of Alchemy engraved painstakingly into its stone doors, a plant that touched the sun and did not burn.

Thinking of Ed sends such a rush through your body it startles you. You’ve only just seen him – left him lying on the battlefield, in fact – but it feels like you haven’t for years and years. In this empty place you keenly feel his absence, and you remember all the things you’ve missed: the whacks on the back in the disguise of brotherly pats, the recoil from his punches during sparring practice, his weight against yours as he rolls over in his sleep –

His hands against yours, warm and blissful in the cold.

He’ll come back for you. It isn’t even a question. You’ve both spent far too long waiting for this moment, and you know he’s missed this just as much as you have.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ user aryaelfkin as part of a fic exchange. This is the first fanfic I've written in six years, let alone first FMA fic, and it was a blast. Thanks for getting me back into derivative writing; I'm so glad I did (:


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